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www.interactivedata.com

February 2, 2011 

Via e-mail to: e-ORI@DOL.GOV 

Office of Regulations and Interpretations 

Employee Benefit Security Administration 

Attn: Definition of Fiduciary Proposed Rule 

U.S. Department of Labor, Room N-5655 

200 Constitution Avenue NW 

Washington, DC 20210 

Re: Definition of Fiduciary Proposed Rule 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

This letter is submitted by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data, Inc. 

(“Interactive Data”) in response to the request for comments by the Employee 

Benefit Security Administration (“EBSA”) in Release No. RIN 1210-AB32 (the 

“Proposed Rule”). In the Proposed Rule, EBSA has proposed to revise 29 CFR § 

2510.3-21(c), relating to the definition of a fiduciary under the Employee Retirement 

Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (“ERISA”). As proposed, the term 

“fiduciary” under ERISA would be expanded to include certain persons who provide 

investment valuation information to employee benefits plans and who qualify as 

investment advisers within the meaning of section 202(a)(11) of the Investment 

Advisers Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80b-2(a)(11)) (the “Advisers’ Act”). Such 

investment advisers have not previously been categorically designated as ERISA 

“fiduciaries” since the passage of ERISA more than 35 years ago. 

Interactive Data is a trusted leader in financial information and a leading provider of 

global securities pricing, evaluations and reference data. These services include 

daily evaluated prices for approximately 2.8 million fixed income securities, 

international equity securities and other hard-to-value instruments. An evaluated 

price represents Interactive Data’s good faith opinion of the price a buyer in the 

marketplace would pay for a security in a current sale. In connection with the 

provision of its evaluated pricing services, Interactive Data has registered as an 

investment adviser under Section 203 of the Advisers Act. 

Interactive Data does not provide personal investment advice to its clients, nor does 

it make investment recommendations. Interactive Data provides evaluated pricing 

services to thousands of financial services customers, some of which may be 

employee benefit plans that are subject to ERISA, to support a wide range of their 

mission-critical applications including portfolio valuation, regulatory compliance and 

risk management, as well as investment research. 
 

 

 

Under a strictly literal reading of EBSA’s Proposed Rule, Interactive Data could be 

considered a “fiduciary” to end users of its data that are employee benefit plans 

subject to ERISA. However, we do not believe that such a literal interpretation is 

appropriate in light of the impersonal advisory services that Interactive Data 

provides. Interactive Data makes the same evaluated pricing data available to all of 

its clients; the information provided by Interactive Data is in no way customized to 

the particular needs of any individual client. Once evaluated pricing data is provided 

to its clients, Interactive Data does not know to what extent it will be used, if at all. In 

addition, Interactive Data does not give “advice” with respect to the purchase or sale 

of securities. Rather, it provides pricing information, which supports a broad range 

of applications. To be clear, there is no advisory “relationship” between Interactive 

Data and its clients as would typically be contemplated for a fiduciary under ERISA. 

Just as important, the clients or end users of the information provided by Interactive 

Data can be persons or entities with whom Interactive Data has no direct contractual 

or other relationship. 

Consequently, the Proposed Rule creates the startling result that Interactive Data, 

merely because of its registration as an investment adviser, may be deemed to be a 

fiduciary with respect to ERISA plans with whom it has no relationship. Based on 

the long-established history of the definition of fiduciary in both EBSA opinions and 

court decisions, Interactive Data does not believe that ERISA would have intended 

such a peculiar result. Interactive Data is therefore requesting that the Proposed 

Rule be modified in such a way as to clarify that third-party pricing services, whose 

function is not to provide any kind of particularized investment advice or 

recommendations, are excluded from the definition of “fiduciary”. 

We look forward to EBSA’s consideration of these important matters and hope our 

comments will be of use and reflected in the final rule. 

Very truly yours, 

Mark Hepsworth 

President, Institutional Business 

Interactive Data Corporation